jeverd / lecture-experience

:books: Liteboard.io - A lightweight browser-based lecturing platform using WebRTC :pencil2:

Liteboard.io

Liteboard is a free, browser-based lecturing platform for anyone who wants to quickly setup a real-like classroom with State-of-the-Art drawing tools and webcam/audio broadcasts. We don't support cumbersome setups; no downloads or accounts required! Just create a lecture, and share the link. It's really that simple.

Liteboard is powered by WebRTC and uses the Janus implementation of a Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU) to allow multiple participants per lecture while ensuring the lowest latency available on browsers. We host our own TURN server to guarantee support for users in any kind of network. Read about us in this university article.

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🙌  Used to love liteboard? Please consider donating to keep the project alive 🙌

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Contents

• 💡 Features
• 📝 Requirements
• 🏃 Getting Started - Clone
  • Setup
• 🌲 Environment Variables
• 🔊 Contributing

💡 Features

• Live audio/video transmissions
• High Quality live drawing boards
• Chat rooms supporting text and attachments
• Quick-to-setup lectures - no download or accounts
• SFU infrastucture allowing multiple attendees
• Lecture metrics with graphical interface
• i18n - Portuguese | English

📝 Requirements

To run liteboard locally, you will need the following:

• Node
• Docker and Docker compose

🏃 Getting Started

Clone

• Clone this repo by running the following command git clone https://github.com/jeverd/lecture-experience.git

Setup

• Starting up docker containers

generating janus configuration file

    cd docker/docker-config
    cp janus/example_janus.jcfg janus/janus.jcfg # if you want play with janus configs, do it in janus.jcfg

now we can start up our janus and redis containers

    cd .. # assuming you are in the docker-config directory
    docker-compose up -d  # this will start up redis and janus containers

• Installing dependencies

now navigate to the root directory and install npm packages

    npm install 

• Creating .env file

navigate to the config directory, create .env file, and then copy contents of example.dev.env into the file

    cd config # assuming you are in root directory
    cp example.dev.env .env  #more info on env var below

• Running the App

now we can start the app

    npm start

🌲 Environment Variables

Variable Name	Type	Description	Allowed
NODE_ENV	string	Your environment, just keep DEVELOPMENT to work locally	DEVELOPMENT , PRODUCTION , STAGING
REDIS_PORT	number	Sets your redis port. Make sure to only change this if you change the port in your docker-compose file	Any
REDIS_URL	string	This is used to connect to your redis instance	Follow format as specified in example.dev.env
EXPRESS_PORT	number	Sets the port your app is running on	Any
SESSION_SECRET	string	Sets your express session secret. You usually don't need to touch this unless in PROD environment	Any
SESSION_NAME	string	Sets your express session name. You usually don't need to touch this unless in PROD environment	Any
EMAIL_USERNAME	string	This is used to send emails. If you are using gmail this is your email, if you are using something like sendGrid, they provide you with username	Any
EMAIL_SENDER	string	This used for the "from" value when sending emails. For gmail this is just your email, for something like sendGrid this is your email that is connected to you domain.	Any
EMAIL_SERVICE	string	This specifies the emailing service you use. For gmail it is "GMAIL"	Any
LOGGER	bool		true or false
JANUS_SERVER_SECRET	string	This is used for janus webrtc gateway authentication. If you change this, please change it in janus config file as well.	Any
TURN_SERVER_ACTIVE	bool	This specifies if you will be using a turn server. Please keep this false for dev environment	true or false
DEFAULT_LANGUAGE	string	Sets the Liteboards default language.	en-US, pt-BR

🔊 Contributing

We encourge anyone interested in contributing to our project to open Pull Requests and Issues about bugs or cool features to implement. We use discord to communicate. Feel free to join the Liteboard server!